PARK LANE IMPROVEMENT BILL (Hansard, 23 July 1958)

§ Mr. Ernest Davies (Enfield, East)
Before the House agrees, if it does, to discuss the Lords Amendments to the Park Lane Improvement Bill, I wish to enter a protest at the way in which these Lords Amendments have come to this House.
I do so because these Amendments reached the House, as I understand, on Thursday and were available to hon. Members in the Vote Office on Thursday evening or Friday. On Monday, in the normal way, I asked at the Vote Office for the report of the proceedings in another place upon these Amendments and I obtained the OFFICIAL REPORT and discovered that these Amendments were not even discussed on the Floor of the Chamber in another place but had been considered by a Select Committee. I asked at the Vote Office for the report of the proceedings of the Select Committee, and the Vote Office went to some trouble to obtain it for me and found that it was unobtainable. Being Monday, it was part of the aristocratic weekend and nobody could be contacted in another place.
On the following day, they made representations again and found that the report of the proceedings of the Select Committee was not available. So I inquired in the Library of this House 573 whether the proceedings were available, and only today did I obtain the confidential proof of the minutes of evidence of the Select Committee which considered the petitions which were presented in another place and which considered the Bill and agreed to these Amendments.
These Amendments were not debated. They were accepted more or less en bloc in another place and no debate took place there. Unless hon. Members went to considerable trouble, in the way I was compelled to, to obtain the minutes of evidence of the Select Committee, which are not normally or generally available, it is impossible for Members to have considered the reason why this large number of Lords Amendments were made.
There are twelve Amendments before us now and, of these, seven are substantive, that is to say, they are of considerable importance. Only two of these were actually debated in another place on the Floor of the Chamber, the others being accepted by the Select Committee after it had heard counsel and gone through the normal procedure. This makes it very difficult for hon. Members to debate the Amendments tonight. The arguments which persuaded another place to accept the Amendments are not available to hon. Members.
I hope, therefore, that when we proceed to discuss the Amendments the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, who is responsible for presenting them to the House, will explain in some detail why these Amendments were moved and accepted by the Government. Hon. Members are quite ignorant of the reasons. Normally it is possible, through the OFFICIAL REPORT of another place, for us to consider these matters in advance. Tonight we have not had that opportunity. There is something at fault in the procedure if Amendments come before us which it has been impossible for us to consider in advance.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent)
The House will not expect me to comment on the procedures in another place, but I have found that they are somewhat different from ours and that another place does not formally publish these reports. As hon. and right hon. Members will now know, two reports, one being the summary of evidence and the other 574 the Committee's report, were published in their provisional form on 25th June and 1st July, respectively, but I have to accept that the procedure of obtaining copies of them is not simple. Naturally, it would be my wish that hon. Members should have all the material they require to assist them in their deliberations. I am sorry that that has not been so, and I will do my best to help out in the debate.

§ Mr. Anthony Greenwood (Rossendale)
Nobody wishes to criticise the procedure in another place. What my hon. Friends criticise is the haste with which the Government went ahead with these Amendments while they knew perfectly well that this House was not in possession of information on which to base a debate on them. Perhaps you may think it proper, Mr. Speaker, to look into procedures by which a report of a Select Committee, upon whose recommendations these Amendments are based, is not available to hon. Members in the Vote Office in time for hon. Members to inform themselves of the facts.

§ Mr. Speaker
Each House has a perfect right to arrange the publication of its own documents, but I am afraid that this is not a matter in which I could interfere. The reasons for the Motion, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," must be given by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. This is a debate in this House, and the reasons must be given here. I am afraid that we cannot control the publication of a report by another place.